People always ask me how I’ve been doing ever since my dad died. I wonder if that’s a knee-jerk reaction to the awkwardness, or if they’re genuinely curious. Maybe they’re waiting for a magical response that can make them feel less sorry for me. It could be their way of preparing for an inevitable loss of their own. I’m not sure, but I’m tired of answering stupid questions. I think everyone can see the answers in the dark hues of purple cascading under my eyes. I’m glad it’s my favorite color.

It’s been almost two years since we buried my father on the south side of town across from a farm. He drove down that road all the time and always said it was his favorite. People tell me that year number two is the worst and I hate that they’re right. The trees sigh every time I visit him. The sun comes out to say hello- and it never asks how I’ve been. It simply greets me with warmth. I get sunburnt every time.

I can’t stop thinking about the autumn trips we took to Indiana every year. Traveling to some old farm town that my grandpa owned. Everyone treated him like a king and he drank all their wine and fell asleep too early. Girlhood was still at my fingertips and I curled those pieces in my palms until it burnt a hole in my skin. My grandparents pinned daggers in our spirits with favoritism and thorn- covered presents. But even through girlhood and grit, and angst, we all knew better. The cousins would all lock eyes and play a game of truce. We’d roam the cornfields until nightfall and wonder if there was another world behind the stalks that stretched their arms to the sky. I still wonder if that was their way of pleading to go to heaven, because the farm felt like hell when the drought came and wiped out all the crops- shut the farm town down for good.

Nostalgia makes my stomach stick to my guts when I think about it for too long. Makes me want to burn every page of every book I’ve ever read and never write again- I tempt myself with this ransom and always cave in. I guess that’s an act of forgiveness within itself. I call my grandparents on my way home- they talk about my dad and how I sound so much like him. Said they blame God for taking him so soon and I think to myself, “after all these years you missed the whole fucking point”. Venting sadness that doesn’t belong to me- They’ll feel better in a few minutes, I fucking promise. I think bitterness makes you live longer than most- and maybe that’s why my dad was too good for this earth. Maybe he came from a place that was so beyond their idiocy. But still, I go to Sunday dinner at their house. Watch the steam roll off my plate and grab it mid-air. Stings my palms every time. AMT